From his position at Augsburg the French Emperor now directed the final operations; and, as before Marengo, he gave most heed to that side by which he judged his enemy would strive to break through, in this case towards Kempten and Tyrol.  This would doubtless have been Mack’s safest course; for he was strong enough to brush aside Soult, gain Tyrol, seal up its valleys against Napoleon, and carry reinforcements to the Archduke Charles.  But he was still intent on his Noerdlingen scheme, even after the loss of the Danube bridges exposed his march thither to flank attacks from the four French corps now south of the river.  Nevertheless, Napoleon’s miscalculation of Mack’s plans, or, as Thiers has striven to prove, a misunderstanding of his orders by Murat, gave the Austrians a chance such as fortune rarely bestows.[30]

In spite of Ney’s protests, one of his divisions, that led by Dupont, had been left alone to guard the northern bank of the Danube, a position where it might have been overwhelmed by an enterprising foe.  What is more extraordinary, Dupont, with only 6,000 men, was charged to advance on Ulm, and carry it by storm.  On the 11th he accordingly advanced against Mack’s fortified camp north of that city.  The Austrians met him in force, and, despite the utmost heroism of his troops, finally wrested the village of Hasslach from his grasp; later in the day a cloud of their horsemen, swooping round his right wing, cut up his tired troops, took 1,000 prisoners, and left 1,500 dead and wounded on the field.  Among the booty was found a despatch of Napoleon ordering Dupont to carry Ulm by storm—­which might have shown them that the French Emperor believed that city to be all but deserted.[31] In truth, Napoleon’s miscalculation opened for Mack a path of safety; and had he at once marched away to the north, the whole aspect of affairs might have changed.  The Russian vanguard was on the banks of the Inn:  all the French, except the relics of Dupont’s division, were south of the Danube, and a few vigorous blows at their communications might have greatly embarrassed troops that had little artillery, light stores of ammunition, and lived almost entirely on the produce of the country.  We may picture to ourselves the fierce blows that, in such a case, Frederick the Great would have rained on his assailants as he wheeled round on their rear and turned their turning movements.  With Frederick matched against Napoleon, the Lech and the Danube would have witnessed a very cyclone of war.

But Mack was not Frederick:  and he had to do with a foe who speedily made good an error.  On October 13th, when Mack seemed about to cut off the French from the Main, he received news through Napoleon’s spies that the English had effected a landing at Boulogne, and a revolution had broken out in France.  The tidings found easy entrance into a brain that had a strange bias towards pleasing falsities and rejected disagreeable facts.  At once he leaped to the conclusion